Sunday, December 01, 2013

it is because of me i cannot have nice things

For a moment, I thought my mother had gone into the sign-making business. Or someone's mother.

The sign is located in a shop window on one of Bend's main streets. And it does not take much imagination to fill in the back story.

Now that smokers have been driven from the camp like a pack of finger-dropping lepers, their detritus has become a trash issue. At one time, smokers could indulge in their particular habit in break rooms equipped with ash trays. My experience was that smokers were quite conscientious about cleaning up after themselves.

Once they were exiled to the great outdoors, their circumstances changed. Cigarette butts and spent matches no longer had a home. And no self-respecting businessman was going to install a cigarette bin in front of his store. Not when smoking has become the equivalent of social behavior that would frighten the horses.

So, what does a smoker do when there is nowhere else to dispose of his leavings? The sidewalk is as inviting a place as any.

Now, Bend is one of those fussy, little towns that imagines itself as nestling in the valley of some Scandinavian paradise. They don't do litter. And I don't blame them. I am just as anal as the next Bendite.

Thus the sign. Some business owner was not happy with the butts and matches in front of his store.

And I commend him for taking the witty approach rather than the blunt, angry dad: "Stop dropping your butts on my sidewalk." Instead, he tossed up what I call a three-step sign. A sign that requires the reader to take at least three steps to get to the intended action.

Good for him. Our world is quickly becoming devoid of wit. It is dead on television. And in intensive care in movies.

It has also made me appreciate those admonitions of my past. Such as the rhetorical question: "Is the coffee table an ottoman?"